A common problem faced by installers of fluid storage and heater tanks of large capacity is that limited means of access is provided to the room in which the fluid storage and heater tanks are to be installed. Typically, buildings and rooms have doors of standard width, commonly 32, 36, 48, or 72 inches, and this limits the size, and thus the capacity, of the storage tanks which can be installed.
It is, of course, usually possible to simply multiply the fluid heater and storage tank assemblies. Thus, one can obtain, for example, 100 gallon capacity by providing two complete 50 gallon hot water heaters. This solution is undesirable, of course, because then one has to have plural burners, which adds to the expense of the installation. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,265,041 to McCarthy, Jr., and 4,023,558 to Lazaridis. Also, duplicative controls are required, which further adds to the cost of installation and maintenance. Moreover, the plumbing is unnecessarily complicated by such an arrangement. Therefore, there is a need for a fluid heater and storage tank assembly which is constructed in such a way so as to be essentially unlimited in fluid storage capacity, yet which has a maximum dimension so as to fit through standard doorways. In this way, essentially unlimited fluid storage capacity can be provided, even in rooms having standard size doors. To provide such a fluid heater and storage tank assembly is an object of the invention.
It has also been the practice in the past to construct very large storage tanks and hot water heaters only upon receiving on order from a customer. Due to the low or unpredictable sales volume and large size of such tanks (e.g. 1,000 gallons), it was not feasible to maintain an inventory of any given size. Consequently, a customer needed to wait a considerable time for his order to be, in essence, custom-made. This practice, in turn, led to considerable inefficiencies in production and labor management, since the tanks were largely hand made, and a ready supply of labor was needed to fill each order.
It is therefore a primary object of the present invention to eliminate altogether the above-described practice of manufacturing large storage tanks and hot water heaters on special order, while nevertheless enabling such tanks to be readily provided out of standard, pre-constructed components which can be maintained in inventory in large quantities and assembled in short order with a minimum of labor.
Previous fluid storage structures are generally formed from single, massive, generally cylindrical storage tanks. By necessity, they need to be formed from very thick sturdy steel in order to withstand the tremendous pressures developed in the storage system. These pressures arise as a result of the quantity of fluid stored and the elevated temperatures at which the fluid is stored. Such thick steel is expensive and difficult to work with.
Another object of the present invention is therefore to provide a modular fluid storage and heating system which is constructed from a plurality of relatively compact, lightweight, inexpensive components.